Monday, July 30, 2007

The isolated life of a ranchers wife

Mrs. Goodnight patched the cowboys’ clothes, sewed on the buttons, doctored the sick and injured, and sympathized with those rough but tender-hearted cowboys, isolated by the plains. Her first woman neighbor was the wife of T.S. Bugbee, the second ranchman of the panhandle. “For six months she and Mrs. Goodnight lived the most isolated life I have ever known in all my frontier experience,” said Goodnight. “Neither could have seen any women associates for from six to twelve months, but they both claim those to be among their happiest days.” Goodnight arranged for Capt. Willingham to bring his wife and two children to the Panhandle, but the first women who entered the Canyon after Mrs. Goodnight were Comanche with Quanah Parker’s band.

Charles Goodnight Cowman and Plainsman by J. Evetts Haley